ODF 1, OOXML 0

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have rebuffed the efforts of Microsoft to have its Open Office XML (OOXML) document format accepted as an international standard.

Of the 87 countries that participated in the vote, 26% opposed Microsoft’s bid. Under the rules for approval, no more than 25% of the countries could oppose the bid. Microsoft also failed to win the vote of 66% of 41 countries on another panel of ISO and IEC members.

The defeat of Microsoft’s attempt to have OOXML is important since more governments are demanding interchangeable open document formats instead of proprietary formats for their copious records. The one standardised format currently available is Open Document Format (ODF) – developed by a consortium led by IBM and used by office suites such as OpenOffice – which the ISO approved in May 2006.